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Alliance researchers have demonstrated that it is possible to refurbish existing buildings, which make up over 90% of our stock of over 26m buildings, to achieve a reduction in CO2 emissions of up to 80% (domestic properties) and 50% (non-domestic). The research has underpinned a shift of emphasis by UK government from new to existing buildings and the formulation of incentives to encourage building owners to make energy-saving improvements. In partnership with not-for-profit, public and private stakeholders, it has been used by national and local agencies to highlight the potential of improving the energy performance of traditionally constructed, timber-framed and residential mobile homes and incorporated into practical guidance by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers. It is also the technical foundation for an educational software package developed with 100 school children and teachers and praised as exemplary by Education Scotland.
Research conducted by Professor Short in the use of natural ventilation and passive cooling in non-domestic buildings is altering policies and plans in the refurbishment of existing healthcare buildings and in new-build for acute and primary care, both within and outside the UK. Moreover, the massive demolition and replacement of healthcare building stock, presumed to be required to simultaneously adapt to the increased ambient temperatures due to climate change and mitigate carbon emissions through improved energy efficiency, has been shown to be unnecessary.
Research carried out at the University of Greenwich has explored issues surrounding sustainable living and climate change mitigation in existing buildings. The research identified the relationships between people and the built environment and developed a series of behavioural interventions to inform building users of the energy they were consuming and provide guidance on how this could be reduced. The socio-technical relationships were used in a public engagement programme to promote debate amongst the over-65s and the interventions by Registered Social Landlords to support behaviour change and reduce energy consumption in domestic buildings. The outputs have also been used to inform Social Housing policy development.
Ground-breaking research in the field of Dynamic Insulation (DI) at Aberdeen University has contributed to international efforts to combat climate change through the reduction of the carbon emissions associated with the heating, ventilation and air conditioning of buildings. Through the establishment of a spin-out company and the development of the world's first modular DI product, jobs have been created and developers have been able to use the first commercially available DI products and systems to meet strict new environmental targets. The success of such projects has led to greater public awareness of the issues around global warming.
A development of six Creative Energy Homes (CEH) on the University of Nottingham campus provides a living test-site for leading firms, including E.ON, David Wilson Homes, BASF, Tarmac, Roger Bullivant and Igloo Blueprint to work with the University of Nottingham to investigate the integration of energy efficient technologies into houses. As a result of this work, Lovell homes has won a number of sustainable housing contracts, Roger Bullivant have developed and installed 30 SystemFirst™ foundation systems and Igloo Blueprint have built £7M worth of new homes. The research findings have informed the UK Government's "Green Deal" strategy, the Nottingham Community Climate Change Strategy and received widespread acclaim through a number of public engagement activities reaching out to over 5 million people.
The work described here has impacted on European policy and standards concerning energy efficiency in Building Services.
The impact arises from two Welsh School of Architecture led and European Commission funded projects, HARMONAC (focussed on inspection of air-conditioning systems) and iSERV (focussed on automatic system monitoring and feedback). These pan-European projects demonstrate achieved energy savings of up to 33% of total building electricity use in individual buildings, and potential savings up to €60Bn. These projects demonstrably impacted the recast European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and the revision of EU Standards (European Committee for Standardisation (CEN)).
The Welsh School of Architecture (WSA) is recognised internationally for its research in developing advanced computational numerical models for simulating the energy and environmental performance of the built environment. These models have been used by leading design practices in the design of major buildings and urban developments. This impact case study presents three models from this research activity that have been widely taken up by industry worldwide, namely, the `building energy' model HTB2, the urban scale `energy and environment prediction' framework EEP and the `building environment' model ECOTECT.
Application of the models, often linked (e.g. HTB2 is the numerical engine for EEP and is accessible within the ECOTECT framework), has resulted in extensive environmental benefits, through reductions in global CO2 emissions. Additionally, there has been a marked impact on practitioners and professional practices, through new guidelines for major international developments (e.g. Pearl Island Qatar and the Chongqing Ba'nan Low Carbon Development).
A 2008 `options appraisal' by the Mackintosh Environmental Architecture Research Unit (MEARU) for Cube Housing Association (CHA) impacted directly on practice apropos eliminating `fuel poverty' (energy cost >10% disposable income) and complying with the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS) — this achieved by a major combined heat and power (CHP) installation linked to thermal upgrading (complete 2012). This tangible impact for CHA in turn helps Scotland to achieve its CO2 reduction targets alongside improved public health. The initial research work by MEARU for CHA followed many years of work with energy efficiency and environmental quality in housing (2 below).
Research by staff of the Energy Systems Research Unit (ESRU) at Strathclyde has resulted in advances in the state-of-the-art in dynamic building energy modelling as encapsulated within the Open Source ESP-r program. This new capability enabled practitioners to analyse phenomena and technologies hitherto not capable of being modelled in building simulation tools. The impact stems from the embedding of ESP-r within companies resulting in service improvement and job creation, and applications of ESP-r resulting in energy demand reduction, low carbon energy systems integration and environmental impact mitigation.
The impacts of this study by the Mackintosh Environmental Architecture Research Unit (MEARU) with two other research units arise from auditing and analysing domestic laundering (100 homes surveyed), and positing solutions to mitigating `fuel poverty' (energy cost >10% disposable income) and improving health-linked aspects of indoor air quality — identifying direct and indirect energy usage attributable to laundering, and the detrimental environmental consequences of added humidity. Impacts since completion in 2012 relate to public engagement — meetings with a key regulatory body, dissemination events and a successful publicity campaign at regional, national and international level, marking the launch of a Design Guide.